End of an Era
by Takai No Hibiki
Summary: The rebels have won and ushered in a new era of peace for Panem, but the death of a single District child plunges Panem into a bloody civil war, one of the oppressed against their oppressors. Shalimar and Leontius are two boys caught in this struggle for life, death, and the meaning of the truth in this new era.
1. Prologue

**End of an Era**

The rebels have won and ushered in a new era of peace for Panem, but not all is well for the reformed country, and the peace they all worked so hard to create is shattered in an instant. The death of a single District child plunges Panem into a bloody civil war, one of the oppressed against their oppressors. Shalimar and Leontius are two boys caught in this struggle for life, death, and the meaning of the truth in this new era.

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Prologue

* * *

_Without the light, there cannot be darkness. Without the dark, we would not know light. Without the rich, there are no poor. Without the poor, no one is rich. But it is the rich and the rich alone who can bring order to society, who can keep it from turning to anarchy and violence. For our nation to live in peace, the Districts must be the ones to make that sacrifice, for without us in the Capitol, the whole nation would be reduced to rubble. So celebrate the Hunger Games not as an event of death and chaos, but as one of life and peace._

In those days, we truly believed that the Games were necessary for peace. We had no reason to doubt all that we were taught in school, things any sensible person on the street would say if asked why the Hunger Games existed. We, who lived in a pristine world where no one had to suffer, saw the Districts as entirely different worlds. For all intents and purposes, the Districts were in a separate universe from our own. They would touch us with their uncertain, savage presence, and we were reminded of a world that could have been had the Hunger Games not existed.

It was the Capitol that held this whole nation together. There were no wars, rampant murders, or deadly plague in all of Panem and we had the Capitol to thank for it. If the lives of twenty-four children were the price we had to pay for that peace and stability, there was no reason to question it. There was simply no reasonable way for all of us to live as equals, for there to be no poverty in the lower Districts. In the later years of our education, we learned how equality for all, distribution of wealth, once destroyed nations. If everyone were to be equal, our society would collapse.

And indeed, once the rebellion began to rock the Capitol's streets, our whole world did collapse. Buildings crumbled, the President died, the new government did not even seem to know who their leader was at all. Everyone, from those of us in the Capitol to the Districts, was living in limbo. But as the aftershocks came to a stop and the flames of the war died down, they gathered everyone together in the courtyard of my old elementary school and told us the truth.

They spat in our faces, replayed every propo that had aired during the war, showed us that the death of twenty-four children every year for over seventy years was not an appropriate price for peace. Our government had lied to us, brainwashed us.

We were the ones who were wrong all this time. We had been given exquisite happiness at the expense of others, leeching off their lives without a care in the world. Now we had to face the truth and the consequences of our actions. The Hunger Games would end, our leaders would be brought to trial and ultimately executed, and we were left wondering whether there was a place in the world for us anymore.

Just as our teachers once told us, if the Hunger Games were to ever stop, it would mean the end of a peaceful era for Panem. They were right.

* * *

Created because wars are not always so easily won and the scales can always tip with just the slightest provocation.

**Trivia Corner!**

For the answers to most trivia questions, all you will get are virtual cookies. The first one is special, though, in that the first person to get the answer correct will get to make their own OC and I will try to incorporate that person into the story. Feel free to make as many guess as you want!

**Q1: **The basic plot of this story is inspired by a certain _fictional_ war. What is this war called and where is it from (movie, book, series, etc.)?


	2. Underwater Castle

**End of an Era**

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Chapter One: _Underwater Castle_

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A watery silence filled the chasm as the last of the children settled into a restless sleep. The cold midnight sky splashed liquid silver across jagged rocks and pools of rainwater, a quiet wind swept through with a howl. A biting cold punctured through to their poorly insulated bodies and the haunting, foreign pain of hunger clawed at their bellies. Still, their mismatched eyes were wide open, catching the light and straining into the distance as if expecting a mutt to leap out at them from the dark.

The incessant echo of falling rain, the repetitive _plunk_ of drop after drop, blared in their ears. When a different, deeper echo blasted through the mountain pass, they leapt to life. As one they huddled in the alcove, away from the rain, their hearts pounding in their throats as they hardly dared to breathe. The sharp splatter of footsteps stumbling through the rain rose to a painful crescendo. Finally the torture stopped and three familiar figures came into view out of the dark, a fourth person held closely between them. A few people, the schoolteacher one of them, moved to meet them with questioning, half-suspicious hand gestures made towards the fourth person.

The captive, as it was made clear the closer they approached, was a young man no older than Leon. As far as he could tell, their prisoner had dark hair but light skin, and his lips were curled into a trembling snarl. The low rumble in his throat distracted them for a brief second before they narrowed in on the most important feature of this young man who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

He wore the steel grey uniform of a soldier. The familiar eagle signet, once their own, was stitched onto the breast pocket of the soaked jacket he wore. Even in the watery moonlight they could see its sharp, roughly stitched eyes mock them from afar. The young man growled deep in his throat, the hostile sound bouncing off the walls and pounding against their ears like a grindstone.

"A scout," grumbled the burly, former Games trainer who had somehow become their de facto leader in their rough scramble to escape the Capitol. Leon's eye swiveled from the wild ball of tightly coiled fury that was their captive to the tall man who was holding a dark and glossy firearm of some sort. Its sleek surface reflected the dim light of the moon, its sharp angles an unfamiliar presence. Before all this, no one he knew had any reason to see one of those up close. He wondered if anyone even knew how to shoot one.

For now it sat innocently in Otho's hand. The schoolteacher eyed it curiously, but seemed to sidestep its presence as he approached the former knife throwing trainer. He motioned again to their captive. "Is that so wise?" he asked quietly over the sound of the dripping water. Leon pressed himself closer to the wall of the alcove, closer to the warmth of the bodies beside him. His whole being trembled from head to toe, but he was so numb from the cold that he wasn't sure if it was really from the weather.

Otho shoved the young man down with a calloused hand. His knees smacked against the packed earth with a wet slap, but his eyes seethed and the glint of teeth peeked through his curled lips. Leon blinked little droplets of rainwater away as the men nervously chattered out in the open. Everyone was wearing their plainest clothes, but for some that still meant they were draped in swaths of golden, green, or bright red cloth, making them look like muddled puddles of paint in the rain. He tugged at the thin sleeves of his shirt and pressed his chin against the tops of his knees.

"We could…" The schoolteacher trailed off, awkwardly glancing towards the gun. Otho shook his head just once as the other two men moved into the shelter of the cliffside.

"Go _ahead,_" the young man hissed through his teeth. Leon's eye widened imperceptibly at the words, filled with such loathing and the barest hint of hysteria, like he was on the verge of throwing his head back and laughing maniacally. The young man's head snapped in their direction, his eyes narrowed against the rain that fell like bullets against his back. "You never had a problem with it before, right? Just this time, you don't have anyone to do your dirty work for you. Shoot me, go ahead."

The other men ignored his venomous words, though Leon could feel the shivers of the people around him. Otho motioned for the young man to stand, but he stayed where he was, kneeling in the rain. He turned to the schoolteacher with a grim frown.

"You know we can't do that, Quinn. They're real close. He's all we've got if they catch up to us." Otho had said his part. The schoolteacher stood aside with his lips pressed into a neutral line. It was hardly a favorable situation, but they had all been there when the streets went up in flames and a rain of bullets. If it might secure their safety, they would have to deal with his sharp tongue and caustic presence.

Everyone shifted in resignation, making room for the three men to move out of the rain, but putting as much distance between them and the District boy as possible. He ended up pushed against the wall on Leon's blind side, making him jerk violently as he swung his entire body to the right in order to keep an eye on the stranger. On his left side, he heard the others breathe in sharp bursts of stinging cold air.

The young man sat crouched against the damp rocky wall, his eyes focused on the threatening barrel of his gun as Otho settled a little ways away. Whereas Leon expected a soldier to be full of lean and hardened muscle, this guy's soaked clothes clung to bony shoulders and a thin chest. He was definitely from the Districts. If his skeletal form did not give his origins away, the sharp and feral gleam in his eyes clearly did. They were not of the Capitol, anyone could see so. This was probably the closest Leon had ever come to one of them.

Everyone was silent and cold. Leon had considered trying to go to sleep before the men returned with the soldier, but now he knew it was impossible. People from the Districts were full of raw, unharnessed power. Who knew what he would do if Otho took his eyes off him for even a second? Next to Leon, little Kreios slept in bliss, but the children were the only ones who felt so relaxed.

Otho moved to sit in front of the young man. "Who are you? Where are you from? What were you doing all the way out here?"

Leon shivered as he watch a grin slowly break out across the young man's pallid face. Despite the threat to his life, he moved, one hand reaching up to push dripping dark hair out of his eyes.

"Isn't it obvious? You're not that stupid, are you?" he said evenly, too calmly for someone who was a captive. Otho's eyes narrowed, but he dropped the conversation all too easily. The soldier huffed. "You can't run forever, you know."

All eyes turned to the young man. Yes, they all knew that well, but there was nothing else they could do. Maybe they had caught one of the District soldiers, maybe they had not yet been caught themselves, but the Districts were vast and now they were in control. And they were angry, seeking blood and vengeance for the past seventy years of wrongdoings. They would hunt them down to the ends of the known earth if it meant securing whatever twisted form of peace they desired.

Minutes passed, people settled down, drifted off to sleep. Leon felt the ache of fatigue set into his limbs and tug at his eye, but he shook himself awake. The young soldier wasn't giving into sleep, either. He was wide awake, glaring either at Otho or the other two men watching him, but eventually he gave up and settled against the rocks with a sigh.

Inevitably, Leon ended up under his scrutiny next. He stopped breathing for a few precious seconds as those cold blue eyes examined him carefully. They caught the silvery light of the moon, twisted it, made it seem like his eyes were made of liquid fire. They reminded him of Marcia's icy blue eyes, the ones that were never concealed behind contact lenses because she liked their natural intensity.

The young man had sharp features, but his face looked young, if worn and tightened in anger. He hardly blinked as he stared at Leon, statue-like in his attentiveness. Though he must have been exhausted, it didn't show.

"Were you born like that?" the young man asked, derision laced in his words as he pointed ominously at his head.

Leon lifted his right hand to touch the sensitive skin around his right eye, the scarring going beyond the boundaries of the crude strip of cloth tied over his head. The others in the group had minor scrapes and bruises, one woman had a broken or fractured arm, but the ones with the broken legs or sprained ankles had been left behind. He was the only one with such an injury. In the past, such things would have been easy enough to mend with a bit of technology and surgery, he used to think bitterly.

Now, he tried not to think about it at all.

He shook his head in earnest. "No," he mumbled, clenching his hand into a fist that hovered over his eye protectively. The scar tissue ached and burned in the cold weather, and though no one told him so, he knew it had to be bad to scratch at it. His remaining eye flickered to the side, staring at nothing in particular, waiting for the young man to stop glaring at him like his physical state of being was offensive. "It's not like it's my fault," he muttered under his breath, trusting the wind and rain to muffle the words. It was still the most he'd spoken since the start of the journey.

"What did you say?" asked the young man caustically, his voice dripping acid as he moved forward with the force of a charging bull. He grabbed at the closest body part he could get, Leon's arm, and yanked him closer, ignoring the alarmed shouts of the other men around them. "As if that's enough to pay for everything you've done to us, now you're acting like _we're_ the bad guys?"

"Hey, let him go!" someone shouted. The person's voice bounced off the walls of the mountains surrounding them, flying into the night just as a low rumble crawled across the sky. The identity behind that voice was lost to the mountains, but it mattered little, as the soldier seemed to not have heard.

Leon winced as the young man's grip on his forearm tightened considerably. Next to him, little Kreios was stirring, his parents urging him back to sleep even as they fought the urge to snatch him away from the dangerous situation.

For at least one whole minute everyone was at a standstill. Quinn, the schoolteacher, looked like he wanted to murder the guy even though he didn't know Leon at all. Otho had the soldier's gun leveled at his head, but everyone knew he would only shoot it as a last resort. The rain and thunder might be capable of covering up shouts and yelling, but if they fired even one shot off, the District soldiers looking for them would surely hear the strident crack.

Leon's heart pounded in his chest, but even that sensation seemed drowned out by the rain. His arm was going numb, spreading through his body as he stared at the young man. Not so long ago they had all enjoyed seeing that raw, feral gleam in the faces of the tributes, and never would they have imagined that the hostility would appear right in front of their very eyes. The Districts were full of people like this, dangerous individuals who had murder in their eyes, and the Capitol had been right in controlling that untamable energy.

Leon breathed a soft sigh and closed his eye. He counted the seconds off in his head. Kreios had taught him to count sheep, but he had never actually seen a sheep in real life and so settled for numbers. It helped.

"We should get some sleep," he said just as a clap of thunder shook the earth, the bright flash blinding everyone whose eyes were open. In that instant, the young soldier released him with a shove, pushing him against Kreios. When the flash cleared, the young man had shifted, no longer staring at him in that unnerving manner of his.

A light tug at the edge of his damp shirt brought his attention to the eleven year old sitting next to him. Leon reluctantly took his eye off the soldier, turning around fully to smile at Kreios. It was dark, so he didn't have to worry about the boy seeing the emotions playing out across his face.

"Where's Marcia?" he mumbled. Leon didn't have an answer for him. His parents didn't, either. Marcia was gone. Maybe she was dead. It was probably for the best if she were no longer here, but none of them had seen her die. Maybe they were just being stubborn and refusing to tell Kreios the truth to protect themselves. Just maybe she really was alive, was probably what was in their hearts.

Leon patted the boy on his wet, half green, half golden brown hair. The dye was peeling off of everyone's hair, revealing for what was probably the first time in years their real colors.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered. "Just go back to sleep."

"Mom, dad, where's Marcie? Wasn't she with us?"

"Listen to him, sweetie," the boy's mother said soothingly, reaching forward to hug her son. He tried to swat her hands away to no avail, eventually giving up and relaxing into her embrace. "Marcia can't be with us right now. So just go to sleep, okay? Maybe she'll find us tomorrow."

Everyone knew it wasn't true. If Marcia wandered this way trying to find them, she would either be caught and shot before she could reach them, or she would lead the soldiers right to their hiding place. Everyone who wasn't her family hoped that they never had to see her again. It wasn't an exceptionally cruel wish.

Leon closed his eye and leaned back against the cold rocks. Not even the newest addition to their group had made any comment about the child's naivety. He seemed to have relented, accepted his situation, and was now at least appearing to be trying to sleep. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, the tightly coiled anger and energy that was rolling off him earlier in waves gone from sight.

The crescent moon and the stars, almost foreign things if they had not seen them in the Games before, bathed them in a cold light as they fell asleep under a partially open sky. When Leon woke, it was to the acrid smell of heated metal and burning flesh.

* * *

Leon = Leontius; Quinn = Quintus; Marcie = Marcia

**Q2:** Just how many states and provinces do the Rocky Mountains cover?

The offer for question 1 from the first chapter still stands.


	3. Ponderosa Pine

**End of an Era**

* * *

Chapter Two: _Ponderosa Pine_

* * *

Shalimar had always been a light sleeper. Days spent warily treading the streets of District 3 ensured that he had never experienced the deep, safe slumber of one who had not a care in the world. He had learned to ignore the hum of machines and the huff of the smokestacks. It was the light tap of footfalls against the ground and the grinding of tools small enough to be wielded as a weapon that startled him awake no matter the hour of the night. It was far before he volunteered to go out and defend this tentative peace the Districts had earned with blood and tears that he learned to make the most out of three or four hours of fitful sleep.

When his half-asleep brain registered the soft cry and rustle of another human being nearby, Shalimar's eyes shot open and he came to attention almost before he even knew what he was doing. His whole body had shifted gears, sliding right into a comfortable defensive position. They might have taken his gun, but he had been fighting without one for all his life. Even if he perished in the struggle, it would be better to die fighting than let them slit his throat in his sleep. As he searched wildly for the threat, he cursed the Capitol and its hollow people not for the first time since he slipped up and was captured.

After the rebellion, there was finally supposed to be peace. The Hunger Games had been abolished, the country had a new president, the Districts were no longer slaves to the Capitol. Not everything could be fixed overnight. There would always be people who were more wealthy than others, people who would step on the innocent for persona gain, but they were working to make sure that Panem never saw the gruesome luxury afforded to the Capitol citizens ever again. Things were looking better than they had in decades.

And then the Capitol, thrown from its throne as it was, reared up again to strike a final blow. He seethed with anger just thinking about it, wanted to shake the life out of them where they stood, even if it meant they might shoot him down. That had been precisely why he entered Panem's newly formed, official army in the first place. Now here he was, at the mercy of these heartless people (people, ha, that was a funny thought) who laughed at the murder of innocent children and now groaned because they were the ones being chased this time.

The sounds, he found out quickly enough, were coming from the boy he had spoken to briefly just a few hours ago. The sky was still dark, though now a navy blue rather than pitch black, meaning that their altercation couldn't have occurred more than three or four hours ago. Only the large man who still had his gun was awake, but if he saw that Shalimar had woken up, he either couldn't be bothered to watch or thought that their captive wasn't stupid enough to run away. He paid no attention to the boy, either.

Shalimar had accidentally migrated closer to him as he slept, to his mortification. He scooted further away as soon as he noticed, eyeing the boy warily, but all he saw was a thin young man breathing heavily and whimpering in his sleep. His brow was drawn and his lips parted in a silent cry, not an unusual sight altogether, but a completely foreign one on a Capitol kid. Unlike the masses Shalimar had seen every year in the Games, the group here was dull and washed-out, their once colorful attire and grotesque alterations to their bodies rather diminished.

Seeing that the threat was really no threat at all, he relaxed and leaned back against the rocks, working out the aches in his shoulders as he blocked out the muffled groans from beside him. Glancing at the young man again, he scowled and resisted the urge to give him a good shove. The Capitol might have been roughed up, but that was almost nothing compared to the treatment dolled out to the Districts for seventy-five years. Half of it was President Snow's fault, anyways.

"No!" went the hoarse, whispered cry from the boy. Shalimar's eyes slid over to his form, to the pale sheen of sweat on his skin and vaguely trembling hands. One rose to his concealed right eye. This time, Shalimar couldn't resist the urge to roll his own.

Whatever that guy had been dreaming, it certainly was not the hundreds of deaths caused by his people, the torturous deaths of the teenagers and children the Capitol had caused for their entertainment. Shalimar fixed a deep crevice in the rocks across the way with a hard glare, drew his legs to his chest, and buried his mouth against his arms. An irritating burn ticked at the back of his throat. It was hard to breathe and a low, pounding headache filled his skull the longer he sat there doing nothing. His clothes were still damp, clinging to his body like a second skin.

Might as well get a little more sleep, he figured. It didn't look like they were willing to shoot him in the head any time soon. Maybe the fever would subside by the time he woke up again.

Once the sky lightened, most of the Capitolites had come into full awareness that a soldier from the Districts was among them. The way they nervously converged far away from him was both humorous and infuriating. Their apparent leader, the large one with a heavy frown, along with a much thinner man with huge eyes and the lasting tinges of green dye in his skin, approached him.

Shalimar tensed and leveled them with an ardent glare. He never thought that one of the groups they were pursuing had someone with both the intelligence and strength to detect him from his perch and yank him down from the crags. In this sort of terrain, those from the Districts were supposed to have the advantage, even someone like Shalimar, who grew up roaming the factories and trash heaps. His knees and hands still smarted from when the man grabbed him by the ankle. He'd scraped against the rocks and smashed down to the ground below, too dazed to resist.

By this time his squad should have realized that he had been compromised and would be taking appropriate measures. It might not happen soon, but eventually they would bring an even larger force down this way to root out the escapees. Shalimar had no way of knowing what would become of him, but that was inconsequential in the larger scheme of things. There had to be sacrifices sometimes, even if it meant leaving behind one of their own. With this knowledge, he was able to face these Capitol men with the steely confidence of one who had been backed into a corner; with no way out, all he had was a cold, solemn pride beating in his heart in tandem with the flux of anger that still filled him through to the core.

"Why bother running? They'll find you eventually," Shalimar pointed out with a deliberate nod towards the mismatched Capitolites shuffling around behind them. They were ridiculously out of place in the mountains. In the sunlight this was even more apparent. "There's not a soul on this continent who'll help you. Not after what you've done."

"Shut it, District scum," the larger man snapped. His voice was low, gravelly, but the threats had lost their steam. Once, Shalimar might have been afraid of these people, might have trembled with the knowledge that they could end his life and the lives of all he cared about with a single word. Once. Now all they had was his gun and their hands and he sincerely doubted that the pampered Capitolites wanted to dirty themselves with his blood, if only because they wouldn't want to lower themselves to his level.

He should have been at least a little afraid, though.

"Will your comrades be as heartless as to abandon you if we come to blows?" snapped the thinner, taller man, the one with greenish skin. Shalimar rolled his eyes and snorted.

"If I tell them to," he said obligingly. "And if it means taking you out, I won't even regret it."

Certainly, what was one more District life to give, if it meant that the Capitol would leave them alone for good? After that little girl was murdered seven weeks ago, a surprising amount of people, Shalimar included, stepped forward to form the first real, official military of the new Panem. How many people, now able to move between the Districts at will, realized that they would never be free unless the Capitol and all associated with it were gone?

There were those who thought otherwise. Even the nation's leaders had been hesitant to take formal action aside from persecuting the murderer. The Mockingjay, too, had given some speech about never descending to the level of their former tormentors. There were people like her who thought more bloodshed was not the answer to their problem with the Capitol.

And indeed, these people in front of Shalimar right not were not threatening, except for the guy with his gun. Most of them didn't have murder in their eyes yet, but he knew that any of them would have laughed and giggled at Shalimar's death if he had been reaped when he was eighteen. They would have been joyous and content seeing his kid brother's brains splattered across a screen for all to see. Though they might pose no threat now, the _potential_ was there and he and many others knew that these heartless beasts would take the next chance they had and terrorize them again.

With that knowledge, he stalked with them down the mountain pass in steely silence. He refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing him with a bowed head and slumped shoulders.

These mountains, what were once known as the Rocky Mountains, had been the most marvelous structures Shalimar had ever seen when he was first stationed at the base of them three weeks ago. This pass was one of many roughly, but naturally, carved paths through the mountains.

They stumbled across uneven ground, which gradually gave way to brambles and grass, and the dry rocky walls faded to green. All around them dark scraggly pines reached towards the sky, their dark needles swaying in the breeze. They clustered in hordes up the slope of the mountains on either side of the pass, anonymous and silent judges.

The Capitolites chattered in subdued voices as they walked. Shalimar trailed behind the boy he slept next to last night, if only because he was familiar and probably could do nothing to him. A much younger kid, about twelve, and the kid's parents walked next to him. Shalimar figured they were family, though it was hard to tell since no one looked alike with their strange implants and oddly colored hair and eyes. The parents cast wary glances in his direction, as if he could just shout and bring the rest of his squad raining down upon their position in and instant. That, or he might pull a weapon out of nowhere and stab someone in the neck.

The older boy, probably a little younger than Shalimar, but maybe still of reaping age (terrible, terrible how people still think in those terms) was jumpy. His remaining eye seemed to never rest, though it was a dull hazel brown in color and unremarkable. He never removed the strip of cloth from around his eye, even though it must have been making him sweat. Most of the Capitol people seemed dreadfully out of shape, even running for their lives. It was fall and at optimal conditions for hiking - not too cold or hot, no more rain, no humidity.

Shalimar huffed. A few people glanced his way curiously every time he so much as sighed, but he ignored them. Where did they even think they were going? The Districts took up just about every bit of land besides the Capitol and the arenas. Escape was just an illusion.

"Hey, what's your name?" Shalimar asked, trotting up to the boy's side with a curious lilt to his voice. At least when he was traveling with the other soldiers, they had stories to tell from all the different Districts they came from, and District chants to sing. Now it was just tedious. The landscape hadn't changed much, still green and filled with swaying pines.

The Capitol boy started violently, nearly falling over in his haste to get Shalimar in his field of vision. The adults around them stiffened, but upon seeing it was just the half-blind boy, they turned around again.

"Why do you want to know?" he responded quietly once he calmed down and realized Shalimar wasn't about to hit him in his blind spot. His voice, though soft, still held that strange Capitol lilt to it. Shalimar's face contorted in disdain. Even if he tried to pretend they were normal people, once he heard them talk the memories of the Games came flooding back. It was filled with people speaking in that sickly smooth snake's tongue and it made him ill.

He shrugged, biting back the shiver that almost traveled down his spine. "I'm stuck with you all for a while, it seems. And you're the only one my age here. So, what is it, or am I not good enough to know your name?"

The Capitol boy's lips titled downward in an obvious frown. Shalimar didn't think he was going to answer by that time. He figured that he would have to spend the rest of this trip to nowhere in silence when the boy did answer.

"Leontius." Shalimar raised an eyebrow. Such a lofty name, just like someone from the Capitol, just like the people in District 1. "Everyone calls me Leon."

"I'm Shalimar," he offered in return. "No nickname, though."

Well, not one he would want a Capitol boy saying in any case.

"So, when did you guys get outta there?" Shalimar asked after a minute had passed. They waded through the knee-high grass, ducked under pines, grumbled about the insects. The ground yielded beneath their feet, still damp from the rain. The air smelled of earth and moisture.

Leontius didn't respond for a moment, perhaps lost in his thoughts, perhaps considering if Shalimar was worthy of an answer. Eventually he turned to Shalimar, sighed, and moved so that his left eye could always keep an eye on him without him flinching every time he remembered that there was someone there. It meant leaving his family's side, but he seemed okay with it.

"After those people were killed in District 1," the boy mumbled. Shalimar nodded in consideration. Well, it seemed that not _all_ of the natural human survival instincts had been leeched out of these people. The riots in District 1 against the few Capitol citizens who had moved there after their homes were destroyed in the rebellion had been the start of the fever that was raging across the country.

Get rid of the Capitol, rebuild it, get rid of the Capitol citizens, get rid of the evil that took so much from them. Shalimar had watched that news report with some sort of grim satisfaction, glad at the time that he had decided to volunteer for the military.

"Then the war started," Shalimar supplied.

Leontius nodded. "Then the war started," he agreed. "And here we are."

* * *

**Q3:** What is the origin of Shalimar's name? (Hint: it has to do with a book and the answer is not on the first page if you look it up in google)

If anyone gets this one, I'll think of some special prize. It's kind of hard to get.


	4. Sky Islands

**End of an Era**

* * *

Chapter Three: _Sky Islands_

* * *

They walked for what seemed like hours. The sun overhead lazily trailed across the sky, disappearing behind peaks and the jagged line of trees on the slopes every so often. At one point they passed a trickling stream filled with muddy grey water. Stepping over it and ignoring their thirst, they continued down the pass. Shalimar, boy did the soldier have a weird name, chattered about people he had met since joining the army in a monotone, rambling sort of way. Leon listened and nodded, the words flying right over his head.

Eventually Otho began to direct them away from the zigzagging pass and they entered the thicker copse of pines that climbed the mountainsides. There was nothing so much as resembling a path up here, and the further they went the less they were able to tell where they had wandered or where they were going. Eventually the deep mountain pass disappeared behind the trees and all that was left was a vague sense of uphill and downhill. The canopy concealed all else from view.

They climbed and their feet burned. The forest shivered all around them. There were no signs of pursuers. It was just them and twisted nature.

"I'm tired," Kreios whined in a low keen. No one really knew how far they had come. The heat in the air had grown considerably heavier. Maybe it was noon already.

Kreios's mother shushed him immediately, but his complaint had reached the other children. Incensed, they began to moan and whimper about how their feet hurt, they were hungry and tired and hot. Why were they mountain climbing without a path?

A tight stitch in his side pained him, but Leon took a deep breath and pushed past the ache. It didn't hurt that much. If he ignored the burning muscles in his legs, he could keep on going. It seemed that their captive was faring much better. In fact, there seemed to be a small smirk on his face as he watched them struggle.

The young man would chuckle and similarly smirk whenever Leon started because a bird or two darted out from his blind spot all of a sudden. Other times he would quietly stare at him, looking like he wanted to say something but was holding back. And other times still he would just stare straight head, seemingly at nothing.

"Why'd you take them with you?" Shalimar asked after the children had quieted. For once his voice was soft, level, merely a leaf floating on the breeze. Leon turned to him curiously, blinking once in slow motion as if the words that reached him were in another language. Shalimar's sharp blue eyes roamed over the endless expanse of trees, narrowing at points in the distance where the illusive shadows of deer and other four-footed animals flickered out of reach. When he turned to Leon again, those eyes were steady but clouded with clear confusion. "We offered them asylum. We're not heartless, you know. We haven't done anything but find them new homes, hard as it's been."

Leon lowered his head and his eye. Of course they could hardly trust the word of the people who were hunting them down to slaughter them and dump their bodies in the sewers. Many had considered the offer, many had relented and sent their very young children into the arms of the Districts without any way of finding out if they would be safe. Some people had done that, yes, when the offer still stood. After a time, the proposition had been repealed, something about child spies or some such thing.

But for as many people who gave their children to the state, there were twice as many who refused and held onto them even when they had to flee.

"You can't…" Leon bit his tongue after realizing what he was just about to say. The words would have rolled so naturally off his tongue had he not been looking directly in Shalimar's eyes at that moment. _You can't expect parents to just give up their children to the enemy, not knowing if they really will be safe just because you gave your word they would not be harmed._

It was too late. Shalimar growled low in his throat, so hostile that Leon took a precautionary step backwards. By this time most of the people in the group had learned to ignore the soldier's snarls and sharp words. This time was no different; only Leon absorbed the brunt of his anger.

"What, finish what you were saying!" His voice was the low timbre of a feral predator, his shoulders tensed as if to leap. "You can't expect a parent to give up their kids knowing they _might_ die? Well guess what, genius, that's exactly what you've been doing to _us_ all this time, but _worse!_"

Leon couldn't look him in the eye. What could he say to this guy? The others must have heard them, but no one was looking in their direction. A few birds scattered into the air at the volume of his voice, but it seemed as if only Leon had heard it at all.

Shalimar snarled. His lips were surely curled into a sneer, but Leon didn't want to look. He kept his eyes fixated on the ground, the grass yielding beneath his feet.

"And you know what? Before I was stationed here, I was in the Capitol for a few days, and you know what I saw? I saw parents _kill their own children! _Your people, _sophisticated_ Capitol people, would rather kill their kids instead of letting us take care of them! How many years did you call _us _inhuman beasts? Now look at yourselves!"

Leon drew in a trembling breath. The hatred laced in those words were unlike any he had ever heard before, not even in those amplified in the Games, spoken by bitter tributes on the verge of death. For that moment of unadulterated rage, he truly believed that Shalimar was considering leaping forward and snatching him by the neck to either snap it or choke the life out of him.

"Why would they…" He could not finish that thought, either. Shalimar shook his head in one violent motion, glaring at the indeterminable path before them as if the whole world was offending him.

"If only I knew," he spat. But there was something else in that tone of voice, a hollow, lingering sadness that was probably as deep as these mountains were high. Leon turned his single eye to look up at the uphill horizon that stretched out before them and swallowed the dreadful lump that had gathered in the back of his throat.

Finally, the only thing he could say was, "I don't believe you."

"Of course you don't," was the reply. Instead of sounding irate like he had assumed it would sound, Shalimar's voice was low and smooth, raw and sad all at the same time. It was like he really pitied Leon because he couldn't believe that some people would be desperate enough to kill their own kids.

It sounded so strange, though.

They trudged onwards for a little while longer before pausing for a break. The last of their rations were going quickly, but only Otho knew even vaguely about which plants they could possibly eat out here. Everyone knew, thanks to the 74th Hunger Games, which were the poison ones that had nearly killed their Victors, but that still left a lot of other options. Shalimar was either staying quiet about it in some effort to lord over them and watch them scramble around trying to catch rabbits or birds or he really didn't know either.

Leon settled on the ground near their captive, his back pressed against the rough bark of a pine tree. Little insects scuttled across the forest floor, round birds with fluffed feathers flitted between the trees. Shalimar had quieted considerably after that outburst, leaving an awkward silence between them.

Kreios, whose dirt smudged limbs tiredly moved him forward, came to rest next to Leon. His young eyes looked murky, uncertain. A thousand emotions filtered through his dark eyes, so different from his sister's singular, decisive ones. He had stopped asking about Marcia. Leon tried to stop thinking about her, too.

The last he saw of her, she had been running in a different direction, but never made it to the rendezvous point with her family.

"Can't we catch something?" Kreios asked all of a sudden in that spontaneous manner that was characteristic of children. After Leon blinked questioningly at him, he clarified, "The tributes figure it out all the time. Can't we do it, too?"

Leon smiled down at him and ruffled his hair like Marcia used to do before she faded out of their lives. "But we don't have the tools."

"Oh," the little boy said quietly. He picked at the half green, half golden brown strands of his hair absently as they sat there listening to the forest resume its life around them. It was different than listening to the sounds amplified during the Games. In real life, the forest was much quieter. The leaves rustling were gentle, some as harmless as a breeze, and the distant sounds of birds twittering between the trees and the animals and insects in the background were muted.

A cool breeze swept past them. A few soft seconds passed.

One moment later, the forest erupted into noise, the noise of flocks of birds shattering through the treetops and into the sky and of the forest floor snapping beneath their feet.

Leon closed his eye. It ached if he had it open for too long, now having to take the strain for both eyes alone. The scarring around the right side of his face itched and no matter how he tried to adjust the strip of cloth across it, it was always impossible to hide all of it from the world.

Twin shrieks broke the quiet. Before Leon even had a chance to register what that might have been, one of the women they had been traveling with came crashing through the trees screaming her head off about a monster. She had been out there trying to find something to eat, but she was alone and there had been two others with her when she left.

Otho cursed, standing up with the gun clutched in his hands, as foreign and strange as an ax in the hand of a five year old. Quinn stopped the woman by seizing her at the shoulders before she went to far. He demanded to know what she was thinking, yelling like that so all the world could hear.

She motioned wildly behind her to the trees that stretched up the slope. There was definitely movement back there, something that caused the birds to scatter and the leaves of tremble.

"Oh, shit," he heard Shalimar curse just as the cause for the commotion came into view.

At first he wondered if it was some type of mutt, only to realize that it was just a normal animal. Sometimes they used normal animals in the Games, too. It being a normal animal did not, however, make it any less frightening to see a massive brown animal charging towards the two people running away from it, leading it straight to them. It was gaining on them, its stubby limbs surprisingly efficient. A thunderous roar blasted through the air as its maw opened wide.

Leon froze for three whole seconds before pushing Kreios to his feet and in his parents' direction. Once standing, no one had and idea what to do. Leon darted from one side to another. What if running made the beast chase them? A quick glance in Shalimar's direction showed that he was just as startled and had no idea what to do with this situation. Great, now they knew he wasn't from the lumber district. With their luck, he was some District 6 kid.

Otho gave a shout that sounded suspiciously like a battle cry and took the gun, the sleek black military issued gun, and raised it high. He shouted and everyone scattered, even Shalimar. They were heedless of their volume as they panicked. Leon turned to go, any words or screaming he might have had for the situation jammed in his throat. He took one last glance at the beast, a great brown bear that was far larger than anything that wasn't a mutt had a right to be. But Otho had a gun and a gun was already more than what any tribute who had defeated a bear or something else like it ever had.

A screeching bash later and Leon realized that the gun was no longer in Otho's hands. Whatever he tried had not worked, as there had been no blast to signify that a bullet had left its chamber and slammed into the rampaging animal. The blur of activity was enough to make his head spin, but he was running towards the gun before he knew what he was doing. It now lay innocent and useless on the ground.

Leon grappled for it, missing once, and ran up close enough to throw it before he realized that he was _that close_ to a living, breathing bear. Otho was backing away frantically, eyes so huge it looked like they were about to pop out of his head, and he angrily glanced in Leon's direction.

The gun felt heavy and cold. It slipped in his sweaty hands like a slithering beast.

A low rumble, truly animalistic and nothing like Shalimar's snarls, vibrated through the air. The bear was on its hind legs like a dog doing a trick, but its lips were curled and its yellowed, massive teeth showed through. Otho looked up at it, backing away, as its paws swiped through the air. It missed the first time, but hobbled forward and rose up halfway again, not deterred.

"C'mon, boy, what're you-"

The wet gurgle, immediately followed by a deep, splotchy scream shattered the air. The ear-piercing sound bounced off the walls of his home as he watched in a morbid state of self-induced paralysis as his father's chest gave way to the steel beam's weight. It sunk like the limbs of the tribute caught in quicksand a few years ago. Dark red blood bubbled over the confines of the wound, dripping to the ground where flames licked at the pool of near black liquid.

His mother was pinned to the floor beneath his father, screaming and crying, trying to claw her way out with jagged nails scrambling against the tiling. Her bright white hair was a frizzy, ashen, bloody mess. All around them glass and little baubles crashed to the ground, skating across the shiny floors to crash into his feet. His mother's bright green eyes closed against the heat as flames engulfed the two, climbing up their iridescent clothes.

Leon choked on curling smoke, watching as the familiar walls of his home shattered and collapsed. Another blast from afar shook the earth beneath him, but he was already on his knees when the tremor wracked his house. The horrible screech of metal on metal crammed itself into his head far past the breaking point.

"Mom, dad! Mom-" He choked, a dizzying blow to his head sending his entire body reeling. The impact dazed him for all of two seconds before a burning pain blasted itself through his body and his eyes grew watery and hazy from the heat.

People were screaming, screaming, screaming, and he couldn't tell if they were his own or someone else's screams. The great roar of fire blared in his ears. It was unbearably hot.

A cry tore itself from his throat. There was so much blood, it was thick as it ran through his fingers, it smelled sharp and heady and horrible. The flames licked at his skin. All he could see was red. The smell of cooking meat filled the air, the smoky scent of burning flesh crawling down his throat and into his stomach where it settled and festered. He'd eaten feasts before, swallowing the richest cuts of beef and lamb and duck, but now the mere thought of such foods cooking made him recoil in disgust.

He watched from the floor, cheek pressed against the still-cool tiles, as the heat twisted the air between him and his parents into a haze. Everything was red, and then suddenly, it was black.

"_Leontius? Leontius?_"

Someone called his name from a different world.

* * *

Don't really like this chapter, but oh well.

**Q4:** Shalimar says that some parents would rather kill their kids than give them to the Districts they once ruled over. What real life or fictional events is this based off of?


End file.
